Paula Madison’s Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China, Screens at MOCA on April 11; Book Signing to Follow

On Saturday, April 11, 2015, the Museum of Chinese in America is screening Paula Madison’s documentary Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China, at 5:00 pm. Award-winning broadcast journalist Ti-Hua Chang screeningwill moderate a Q&A, which will be followed by a book signing with Paula Williams Madison, on the launch of her memoir Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem.

The Museum of Chinese in America is located at 215 Centre Street New York, NY 10013. Admission: $12/Adult; $7/Student & Senior; FREE for MOCA Members (includes museum admission) (212) 619-4785

Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China, directed by Jeanette Kong, is the moving story of former television executive Paula Williams Madison, a Jamaican American woman who went in search of her mother’s father, Samuel Lowe—and discovered her own Chinese roots.

Paula and her brothers grew up in Harlem with their half-Chinese mother Nell. Throughout her life, though, Paula would feel that her mother’s perpetual sense of melancholy was due to Nell’s sudden, forced separation from her Chinese father’s side of the family. After Nell’s death, Paula decides to fulfill a promise to her mother, and connect to her estranged father’s people. Taking family tree research to an epic proportion, the siblings travel to Jamaica and later to two Chinese cities, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, where along with other U.S. family members, their group of 20 relatives visit the Lowe ancestral village. What Paula discovered there was more than just details of her family history, but 400 more members of their family who had been living across the world, and a family tree that dates back 3,000 years.

Paula Williams Madison is Chairman and CEO of Madison Media Management, LLC, a division of Williams Group Holdings LLC, a Chicago-based investment company. They manage such significant companies as The Africa Channel. Madison also is vice president of the Los Angeles Police Commission. She spent 22 years with NBC, and was most recently their Executive Vice President of Diversity as well as the Vice President of the General Electric Company. Honored for corporate leadership and community outreach, Madison was named one of the “75 Most Powerful African Americans in Corporate America” by Black Enterprise Magazine in 2005, and included in the Hollywood Reporter’s “Power 100.” In 2013, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. inducted her as an honorary member during its centennial. A native of Harlem, Paula and her husband reside in Los Angeles.

Lia Chang is an actor, a performance and fine art botanical photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist. Lia has appeared in the films Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon and Taxman. She has guest starred on “One Life to Live,” “As the World Turns,” and “New York Undercover.” Lia starred as Carole Barbara in Lorey Hayes’ Power Play at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C., with Pauletta Pearson Washington and Roscoe Orman. She is profiled in Jade Magazine.